We’re pretty much all tapped out in the synapses department. It’s quite likely that we’ll spend some small portion of this weekend sitting in an emotionally precarious position with a bowl of corn flakes, watching the first season of The Muppet Show on DVD. Which is not really all that different from days that we clearly recall several decades ago. Yes, that’s how bad it’s gotten, folks. Even our vernacular has been reduced to such genius assessments as, “It’s a nice day. I like it when the sun comes out.”

We need to recover. From what, we’re not quite sure.

So instead, we’ll point to Our Pal the Rake‘s review of Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park. Also check out Patricia Storm’s latest comic, offering inventions for authors on a book tour.

Also of note: Roger Ebert seems to be hitting the snark these days. Check out this week’s thoughtful evisceration of a letter sent by the producers of Chaos and last week’s zero-star review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.

For those of you who’ve emailed about the explosion, I assure you it’s not Beirut here in San Francisco. It’s really quite simple: our local utility company here is notoriously incompetent. Nothing to see here. Move along.

We were reminded Thursday evening that there’s this fantastic place called the Outside World, where people congregate and converse and marvelous human behavior goes down. So the next episode of Bat Segundo still lingers in a close-to-final state of completion. Keep watching the skies. About ninety minutes of new content is coming over the course of two shows.

But let’s talk of the Naughty Reading Photo Contest. Yes, there’s been a pleasant din buzzing about, with people planning fantastic ideas. But we’ve received only one entry! While we expect the floodgates to open closer to the deadline for entries (August 31), as literary folks are often procrastinators, we remain quite concerned that people here seem to think that reading is a wholesome activity. We remind our readers that reading is also a solitary task, which means that there’s plenty of wiggle room here for deviance. The nation may be ensnared in a puritanical atmosphere, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be. So if you’ve got what it takes, the time has come to put your camera where your passion is. We dare you to be naughty!

Things will probably be quiet here today. We’re still mixing this week’s show and prepping for next week’s. Expect these two Segundo podcasts perhaps over the next five days. We have Mr. Segundo working overtime and he isn’t particularly happy about this.

We’ve also begun our long-neglected story-by-story breakdown on The Rainbow Stories for the Vollmann Club so that we can at long last move onto the next book. Here’s hoping our able colleagues are doing the same.

The email is hopelessly backlogged. We’re doing our best to respond. Really, we are.

In the meantime, keep those naughty photos coming!

Over the last few weeks, you may have noticed the gradually restored “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” blogroll. Well, it’s taken a few weeks. But now I think I have everybody back. (Sadly enough, three people on the last blogroll had actually died.) But if I somehow missed you, please remind me so that I can get you back on the list.

[RELATED: Since the Technorati tags experiment didn’t really work out, I’ve replaced this with some new categories, which will be introduced gradually in the months to come.]

Postings are going to be light and then heavy. But whatever the format and timing, they will be comprehensive on the other side. Either way, my ass is heading to New York to check out this BEA bidness. Count on this site to give you the honest lowdown and to seek out the devoted stragglers.

If you’re in town, I’ll be at the Slipper Room on Thursday night (between 6-8) with several other nice lit bloggers. Please stop by and say hello.